Is saving them from drowning enough?

We spend so long pulling them out of the river we never have time to stop to see who is pushing them in upstream.

As a charity leader one of the questions you should always ask yourself is the balance your work should take between fixing the flaws in the system that makes your work necessary and dealing with the immediate challenges that your beneficiaries are facing. More than that - is your work hiding failures of system and state that would be better exposed?

I have been challenged - rightly - to answer this on the work I am doing on the role of schools and charities in supporting families in financial need. Does fundraising for laptops; or reducing costs of school day; or footballers working to feed children; or charities subsidising school trips and experiences, absolve the state and systems of responsibility?

It has ever been a hard call. When I was a young woman wanting to change the world I had a discussion with the redoubtable Shaks Ghosh - founder of Crisis. I was full of fire and passion to reduce the causes of homelessness. She agreed the system needed turning on its head. But then quietly leant forward and whispered 'but that won't help the person freezing on the street tonight.' It has always stuck with me - that balance to be struck.

I am now an old (er) woman and want to change the world with no less fire and passion (but needing more coffee.) Often this fire manifests itself during Children In Need. I repost this every year. A country in which we need charitable giving, by people doing star jumps for 24 hours in a bear costume, to pay for dying children to end their lives in hospices probably needs a kick.

This feisty female also tends to become a bit ranty when I see those MPs who have voted for austerity and cuts to benefits or renting rights standing proudly at the opening of another charity foodbank.

But charity matters.

There is a role for charity. There is a role for community. And to respond to Shaks' challenge - while we need to reform education there is also a need to deal with the child in front of us today.

So how do we balance?

When do we lobby for system change with a focus on the years ahead?

When do we focus on the days ahead in the lives of children where a term is forever?

In many years of running government contracts, fundraising and working with schools I have developed 4 questions that help me walk the line. Not perfect and ever up for review.

1.Are we honest about the challenges to the system?

On education many would agree that the three key issues are:

• an over inflated belief in how much schools can address poverty or social mobility or life outcomes. Indeed this report out today from Institute of Fiscal Studies just confirms this again (let's leave its ignoring disabled children for another day.) This is not to detract from great work schools are doing but if want to change life outcomes should the lobby be just about schools or should it be about housing, employment and wider issues of equity?

• that ironically the focus on schools as all about education (the Gove mantra when Department for Children, Families and Schools moved to become Department for Education) was matched with ripping out all the support services that picked up non education work eg Surestart, Youth Services, CAMHS etc. This made schools the last point of universal access for support - putting more pressure on them. So. Less time on educational provision (which - notwithstanding first bullet point - does of course have some impact on life outcomes). And there was a stripping out of support for all the other things that make a difference.
• real budget cuts. Schools were underfunded before this cost of living crisis. Now increased costs with increased needs has blown budgets up. Shortened weeks. Collapsing buildings. No support staff.

Anyone who thinks schools are adequately funded needs to go and find a bear costume and do 1000 star jumps

2. How can we add our data, stories and solutions to the mix for addressing these system challenges?

For schools and charities sharing the stories and data is an important part of how we support system change. What are we seeing? What are we having to do to support families? What does data tell us on impact of poverty? What works? What do we need more of?

And we do this for our local schools and our own charities. And we do it for schools and the charity sectors as a whole. But also - and this is where it is more challenging - we do it from the point of view of all children and young people and not just our own institutions and sectors. We make the case for investment in home education or in a 'competitor' charity or in a school less well off than ours if that is the better solution. We raise up the stories of others.

3. How do we do we ensure that those responsible for system don't use our work to avoid their responsibilities? Especially if we take funding from system players eg contracts to deliver services or statutory funding. How are we not used to 'astroturf' policies or to hide system deficits?

Astroturf - simulated or artificially created public support for something, generated by an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign.

4. What do our beneficiaries say? Are they area at the centre of our decision making? Are they part of governance? Do we raise the experiences up in a respectful way to shape the solutions? Are they part of the solutions and not done to?

These are not easy things. The balance is hard and charity leaders will not always get it right.

But on schools and charities addressing poverty and the cost of the school day? Yes we need to shift the system. Yes we need to look upstream. But for now. We are the life buoy.

Schools are moving mountains to help families. At a time when their own resources are woefully inadequate.?

This is part of a series of articles looking at how schools, families, charities and communities can work together to reduce costs and ensure access to the whole of the school experience for all pupils. These articles are based on discussions with schools and families and draw on evidence, policy and case studies from a range of sources.

The related book is due in December 2022.